ABSTRACT
The discoveries of chemical, physical, and biological carcinogenic agents and their actions have been among the most exciting and significant in our understanding of the causation of cancer and of many aspects of its prevention, but nothing has intrigued the biological scientist more than the molecular differences between cancer cells and normal cells. The first hint of this interest by biochemists in the cancer problem was shown during the first two decades of this century when the structures of nucleotides and sugar phosphates were just becoming known to biochemical scientists. In a review, Potter (1982) detailed much of the historical development of biochemical investigations into the cancer problem through 1975 (Table 15.1). Just as with the initial morphological and biological studies of the neoplastic process (see Chapter 1), the development of biochemistry and, more recently, cell and molecular biology has given rise to a series of hypotheses on the biochemical nature of neoplasia as well as the molecular mechanisms that result in the conversion of a normal cell to a neoplastic cell. This chapter considers, first, the historical development and bases for some of the better known theories of the biochemical nature and genesis of neoplasia in vivo. The evolution of such concepts into our more modern-day understanding of molecular lesions in neoplastic cells is then discussed.
